Sheet driver for printer-slotter box presses



SHEET DRIVER FOR PRINTER-SLOTTER BOX PRESSES Filed Aug. 6, 1968 H. J. DEVON Nov. 24, 1970 2 Sheets-Sheet l @hmmw INVENTOR. v HARRY J. DEVON- M M ATTORNEYS.

Nov. 24,1970 H.J. DEVON I r r 3,541,656

SHEET DRIVER FOR PRINTER-SLOTTER BOX PRESSES Filed Aug. 6, 1968 -2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR. HARRY J. DEVON.

ATTORNEYS.

United States Patent 3,541,656 SHEET DRIVER FOR PRINTER-SLOTTER BOX PRESSES Harry I. Devon, Pittsburgh, Pa., assiguor to Jas. H. Matthews & Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., a corporation of Pennsylvania Filed Aug. 6, 1968, Ser. No. 750,605 Int. Cl. B21]: 31/00 U.S. Cl. 29-121 2 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A toothed driving disk is mounted on a shaft and secured between a hub member and a clamp element by a plurality of bolts passing therethrough. The disk, hub and clamp are each presented as a split annulus. At least one aperture on each disk segment, through which a bolt passes, comprises a notch opening towards the center of the segment to facilitate assembly and disassembly.

This invention is for means for advancing boxboard through a printer-slotter machine and the like operations.

In the manufacture of cartons from corrugated boxboard, the boxboard is cut into individual sheets as it comes from the board-making equipment. The sheets are cut fairly close to size, with a narrow margin at each end of the strip that is removed in the final operations on the sheet, after printing has been applied. The sheets may be of a size to form a single carton, or they may be of a length to be subsequently severed into two or more individual blanks. In this case, the separation of the sheet into individual blanks takes place at a slotter that slits or scores the blank after all printing has been applied.

Where two or more colors are applied to the sheet, the sheet advances crosswise between successive spaced printing units comprising two rolls, one of which has a printing plate on its periphery, and the other of which is a platen roll for supporting the sheet while it is being printed upon. Being crosswise, the ends of the blanks are parallel to the direction of travel, so that in this operation they may be considered as the sides of the blank, and in this context they will be hereinafter referred to as the sides or edges. Even when only a single color is being applied, successive printing units may be used to print on different areas of the blank. In any case, the printing must be accurately located on the sheet, and with printing using contrasting colors, the different colors must be positioned with respect to one another within close tolerance, or the carton is unacceptable.

This requires that the start of each sheet into the first and each succeeding printing unit be exactly indexed to the position of the printing plate on the first and each succeeding printing roll and into the slotter, and that the sides of the sheets be exactly parallel to the direction of travel of the sheet with no possibility of skewing out of such parallelism. Pinch rolls driven synchronously and in isochronism with the printing rolls are usually employed for this purpose with a pair of such pinch rolls in advance of each printing unit, and following the last printing unit where the sheet feeds into the slotter. However, as heretofore provided, they have certain drawbacks. For example, rolls with knurled surfaces, either across 3,541 ,656 Patented Nov. 24, 1970 ice their full length or at the sides only of the strip, have been employed, but the knurling becomes glazed and to have them press against the board with adequate pressure to prevent slippage may result in the corrugated board being mashed or marked. Soft rubber or rubber-like rolls, or roll surfaces have been used, but the distortion of the rubber under pressure decreases its angular velocity so that the desired condition of isochronism is gone, and a proper compensating adjustment cannot be provided.

According to the present invention, the feed rolls in advance of the first printing unit may be retained, the top roll of this pair usually having a ribbed rubber roll with closely-spaced peripheral ribs across substantially the full length of the roll, but the subsequent feed rolls between units, as well as the terminal ones for feeding the printed blanks to the slotter, are modified. One of the rolls of each pair, preferably the upper ones, is removed from its shaft and is replaced with two spaced feeder or sheetdriving elements as hereinafter described, on each shaft. One of these sheet driving elements is located on the shaft in a position to engage one narrow marginal edge of the sheet, and a second one to engage the other marginal edge, each of these feeders comprising a disk having dull teeth at its periphery designed to squeeze and grip those margins of the corrugated sheet which are subsequently trimmed away and exert a positive thrust to the sheet, the disk and teeth being of a diameter and being positively driven at a correct speed to keep the sheet in accurate registration with the printing rolls and, by such engagement with the sheets, preventing slippage. Preferably the disk is made in segments held in non-slipping engagement with a hub ring which is also made in segments to be adjustably clamped to a shaft, the disk being confined against the hub ring by a clamping ring, which also is in segments bolted through openings in the toothed disk segments to the hub ring. The arrangement is such that a toothed segmental disk may be removed and replaced by another without removal of the hub or clamping ring from the shaft.

The invention may be more readily understood by reference to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals designate like parts, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the portion of a printerslotter such as is commonly used in the art to show the 10- cations at which the positive sheet driving elements are located;

FIG. 2 is a schematic section in the plane of line 11-11 of FIG. 1, but on a slightly larger scale;

FIG. 3 is an exploded view showing the several parts of an individual sheet drive element assembly;

FIG. 4 is a side elevation of a single sheet driving element assembly; and

FIG. 5 is a front elevation of FIG. 4.

Referring first to FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings, 2 designates a device over which the corrugated sheets are moved to the conventional pair of feed rolls, designated generally as 3. This feeder unit is in advance of the first printer unit which is designated generally as 4, and at least the uppermost roll is resilient rubber and ribbed across its full length as hereinafter described. There is a second feeder or, more properly, sheet driving unit following the unit 4, and which is designated generally as 5. A second printer unit is designated 6. Following this is a third sheet driving unit designated 7, and there may be a third printer unit designated 8, followed by the final sheet driving unit 9 which delivers the sheets to the slotter portion of the equipment (not shown).

Each printer unit, as is now customary in the art, comprises a drum on which there may be secured one or more printing surfaces or plates 11. For simplification of illustration the usual inking rolls are not shown. Each printer roll is located above the platen roll 12. The sheets pass horizontally in the direction of the arrow successively through these printer units, passing horizontally between the printer rolls 11 and the platen rolls 12.

Each of the sheet driving units has a lower supporting roll 13, the top of which is positioned level with the top of each of the platen rolls 12. With the present invention there is a shaft 14 located above and parallel with each of the supporting rolls 13. Heretofore the shafts 14 have been provided with the feeding rolls similar to the ones in the initial feeder unit, but in the present invention the positive grip driving elements of the present invention are located on these shafts. The lower feeder roll is designated 13a and the upper one 14a. As shown in FIG. 2, these elements are so spaced that they engage only the extreme marginal edges of the sheet passing between them. This sheet is designated A, and in a printer-slotter machine it is comprised of corrugated board with the corrugations running crosswise of the direction of travel of the sheet, and parallel with the axes of the shafts 14.

Each of the positive drive elements is preferably of the construction shown in greater detail in FIGS. 3 to 5 inclusive. Each one has a principal hub member 16 split into two segments to form a substantially continuous annulus. These segments are held together by tangentially-extendin g bolts 17. The annulus has an internal diameter such as to fit tightly on the shaft 14 and by loosening and tightening the bolts 17, the collars may be adjusted along the shafts 14 to engage the margins of sheets of different widths.

Each of the segments of the hub member 16 has a plurality of threaded holes tapped therein as indicated at 18, the holes being so positioned that they constitute a mirror image of each other on the two segments.

Cooperating with each hub member 16 is a second annulus comprising a clamping ring. It also is formed in segments designated 19. These segments have holes therethrough which register with the holes 18 in the hub '16, and the clamping annulus 19 is secured to one face of the annulus 16 by bolts 21 that pass freely through the holes 20 in the annulus 19 and are threaded into the holes 18 of the hub annulus 16.

The sheet gripping disk itself is designated 22, and it is formed of two segments to constitute a complete annulus. The center opening through this annulus is at least as large as the central opening through the annuli 16 and 19 so that the feeding disk will also fit about the shaft 14. This disk has dull teeth 23 equally spaced about its periphery, the overall diameter of the annulus 22 being greater than the overall diameter of the annuli 16 and 19 with the teeth projecting beyond the periphery of the annuli 16 and 19 in the assembled structure. The segments of the annulus constituting the sheet gripping disk have the same number of holes therethrough as do the segments of the other two annuli located to register with the holes in the segments of the other two annuli in the completed structure. As here shown, there are three holes 18 in each segment of the annulus 16, and three holes 20 in each segment of the annulus 19. Desirably two holes 24 in each segment of the annulus 22 are complete circular openings through which the bolts 21 can pass while the middle hole of each segment in the toothed disk is a notch opening inwardly to the peripheral opening through which the shaft passes.

In the assembly the disk 22 is clamped between the hub member 16 and the clamping annulus 19, the bolts 21 passing through the holes 20 and through the holes 24 and 25 and being threaded into the holes 18 of the hub member. When this assembly is made and the bolts 21 tightened, all of the parts are immovably held together, and

as explained above, the hub member is clamped in the proper working position on the shaft 14. To replace the toothed feeder disk at such time as may be necessary, the two bolts 21 in the assembly that pass through the holes 24 of the disk 22 are completely removed, but the middle bolt of each section is merely loosened. Because of the notches 25 the two segments of the disk 22 may then be removed sideways from the shaft and the two replacement sections put in place, and all of the bolts then replaced and tightened. With this arrangement it is not necessary to remove the segments of the clamping ring 19 or completely separate them from the hub member in effecting the removal and replacement of the teeth.

The drive disk 22 with its projecting teeth is made with a diameter such that the teeth 23 will actually squeeze spaced indentations into the marginal edges of the corrugated board to feed it forward, and these indentations may remain permanently in the board, but they do not protrude far enough to actually contact the supporting rolls 13, and do not need to penetrate the boxboard. Since the margins so indented are subsequently removed from the blank, this is not objectionable. The root diameter of the drive disk 22 is therefore selected so that its peripheral speed is equal to the linear speed of the sheet against which it is working. The teeth are closely spaced with the points being slightly rounded to dull them, the teeth being spaced from center to center by a distance of the order of inch, more or les. The disk segments may be formed by stamping them from sheet metal, after which the teeth are hardened to resist wear in gripping the corrugated board. The thickness of the disk in the direction of the axis of the shaft on which it is mounted is something of the order of /s inch so that the teeth are thin enough to actually squeeze the board, 'but at the same time are wide enough to provide the required indexing control of the sheet movement without tearing or slicing through the boxboard.

It is well known in machines of this kind that the driving units must be driven in synchronism and isochronism with the printing drums so that each shaft 14 and all of the drums are geared together as is usual in the art with the printing plates 11 so located on their peripheries that each drum will mark its impress on a predetermined area of the sheet. The present invention requires only the re moval from the shaft 14 of the knurled or other driving rolls now commonly used, and the replacement of them with the disk assemblies of the present invention.

Since there are two of these disk assemblies on each shaft, indexing marks may be made on the shaft to show the exact position where the hub segments are to be clamped in place. Since all of the driving disk assemblies for the same machine will be alike, the similar positioning of the hubs on the shafts 14 will insure that the teeth on each driving unit crosswise of the machine will be in alignment, and that the teeth in one driving unit will be in isochroism with the teeth of another driving unit.

While I have shown and described one preferred embodiment of my invention, it will be understood that various changes and modifications may be made within the contemplation of my invention and under the scope of the following claims.

I claim:

1. A sheet driving disk assembly for slotter-printer machines comprising a toothed disk, a hub member of smaller overall diameter than the toothed disk and on which the disk is removably secured, said hub member comprising an annulus formed in segments, means for clamping the segments together about a shaft on which the disk is to be used, the disk also being formed in segments held together on the hub, said toothed disk segments being confined between one face of the hub member and a segmental clamping annulus secured to the hub, the segments of the clamping annulus being bolted to the hub member by a plurality of bolts, the disk segments having holes therethrough through which some of said bolts pass and notches pening toward the center of the 5 segments through which other bolts pass whereby the disk segment may be removed from between the hub member and the clamping annulus without removing all of the bolts.

2. A sheet driving disk as defined in claim 1 wherein the toothed disk, the hub member and the clamping annulus are all formed in two segments, the segments of the hub member being clamped together by tangentially-extending bolts passing through confronting ends of the segments.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 808,305 12/1905 Pfeil. 1,002,913 9/1911 Harriss.

5/ 1927 Snyder.

6/ 1934 Johnson.

3/1935 Fossel 29-121 X 10/ 1952 Herman.

4/1957 Hageline 29-121 X 3/1965 Gulliksen et a1. 83-664 X 4/1966 Finlay 83-665 FOREIGN PATENTS 5/1964 Great Britain.

MORRIS, KAPLAN, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

